Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1887-03-04
JOAQUIN MILLER.
The Poet of the Sierras Tells Oh
CalifornIa's Golden Days.

Special Correspondence THE DEMocRATl
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. Ii.
Was it the day on which Fremont hoiste
the Bear flag? Was it when the vigilante
rose up one morning and hung their highes
edifices with their most conspicuous citizens
Nothing of that sort. CALIFORNIA; creates
day was not day OF war or of vengeance
but a day of peace, pastoral day; day o
planting trees. And / invoke your patienc
and 1 appeal to the best part Of your hear
while recite the plain, practical facts touch
ing the greatest step forward which a yer.
great state has recently made.
! ~.
Yes, know l could sooner tell, and yor
would sooner read, a story about Yuba Bill
or the Mill Dam stage, or the Spanish dane
at Hangtown, and all that sort of stuff. Ant
1t is very easy writing; and then you hav
come 10 expect that sort of thing from unde
the shadows Of the Sierras. But the worlC
! sweeps swiftly forward All that is far behinC
us. This state was born to better things; vol
and l to better thoughts. Horace Greeley
| did wondrous lot of good work during hi
long years of persistent toll; but to me thu
most beautiful and useful bit of all his nov
visible work is the double row Of splendid
mountain pines which he planted at Chappa
| qua. visited this great and good mans
tomb not long ago. I found some faded
| flowers there; that was ALL Everything
around and about was the story of deatf
| and decay. And after a few years
when those whom ne loved are laiG
in the dust by his side, even the
! faded flowers will come no more Yet yeal
after year the strong and healthy pines
he planted at Chappaqua will stand w
stronger and be better able to testify to this
mans love of the beautiful and his continual
effort to make the world better and still more
beautiful. And when men have learned tc
plant their own monuments in the form OF
enduring groves of friendly and graceful
trees that add to the beauty and fertility OF
the earth, as Horace Greeley did, it will
chronicle a mile stone in the worlds advance
ment. This long lane Of pine trees planted
by the great teacher, Horace Greeley, num-
bers, perhaps, 200-may be twice that
number. But if I could only induce the
planting of even one tree in the place of each
tombstone that is planted, it seems to me it
would be almost like saving the world from
destruction. And as for the choice between
tombstone and tree for beauty, durability
OF utility no one will care to debate The
difference i'll the cost is cheaper matter, yet
matter Of great Importance to us who toll
A grave plot could be covered with pretty
and enduring trees, hundred times if need
be, for much less than the cost of the. cheapest
of crumbling tombstones
And healthful trees, with hugest limb,
Shall wheel their circling shadows round,
And make the scorching sunlight dim
That drinks the greenness from the ground,
And drop their dear leaves on her mound
/ **.
But to return to the grandest day of Cali
fornia. 1t had been discovered that the
Sierras were being slowly but certainly
washed down and over the broad, rich valleys
of California. and even into the sea. The
supreme court of the nation was appealed to.
: ifer the waste of much treasure and time
and much toll of brain it was at last decided
iiiat the gold miners were the cause. The
liners were restrained. Their fortunes were
ept away, and thousands of good men were
r.-,luced from wealth to want And vet, still
tic mountains continued to melt away and
bury the farms and little towns in sand and
powders at their base. 1t was the old story
of the Tiber and Rome and Ostia at the
Theirs mouth. The woods had been cut
away from the mountain sides, and now no
friendly trees lifted their wide arms against
the beating storms, no strong roots reached
out to hold the earth in place, as they had
since the six days labor of creation were
done. And so, in spite Of supreme courts OF
all the edicts of the national capital, the
Sierras kept melting away into the sea-
What was to be done? Plant the state in
trees! Restore to mother earth the green
robe which the lumber merchants, the saw
mill men and the thoughtless men who scat
tered fire through the forests had stolen
from her; hide the nakedness Of our dear old
mother earth whom men had denuded for
gold. But how? Who shall begin this hercu-
lean work? And where? and when?
The national board of forestry had met on
the banks of the Ohio and had decided that
the Mississippi, the Missouri and all their
mighty tributaries were washing the richest
states in the Union into the sea and burying
under the debris the most fertile states on the
way to the gulf. The trees that had protected
the SHOWS by their broad shadows till q late
date in the summer season had been cut
away and burned away. Who would OF
could undertake to restore these forests and
save this young nation from suddenly follow
ing in the footsteps Of Syria, Italy and the
south of France?
~.
will tell you briefly, and bluntly, who be-
gan this work fo, California and how and
when it began. There has been much debate
and INDIGESTION as to who established Arbor
day in Nebraska, where it has been found
that the rain belt broadens even faster than
the tree belt is broadened by the tree plant
ers; but l shall set down two or three facts,
so that there need be no debate in the years
to come as to who established Arbor day in
California. Not long since Twas crossing the
broad and ever glorious bay of San Francisco
along with my friends John Vance Cheney,
the poet and his gifted wife, Our scattered
and decimated and mutilatad mountain for